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The Sound of Music

This popular film tells the story of Maria von Trapp, who learned to “seek God’s will and do it whole-heartedly.” Learn what’s true and what isn’t in the story, and be blessed by all the Biblical principles throughout the film (except the crazy ideas found in those two songs they added to the film version of the Broadway musical!)

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Sermon Notes

The Sound of Music

Released 50 years ago, it’s the third-highest grossing film of all time More inspired by a true story than a true story. Some real background:

Maria Kutschera was born in 1905. Raised by an abusive uncle who turned her into an atheist and a socialist. Thought she was going to a Bach concert when she entered a church. Heard a great sermon, and gave her life to the Lord. Began studying to become a nun.

Was only sent at first to tutor young Maria. 25 or 26 tutors and governesses before her.

Family was always musical, including the Captain.

She didn’t fall in the love with the Captain until after she married him. She married him to be a second mother to the children.

The film changes the sexes and names of the children.

There was no Max, and no Rolf.

Didn’t climb over any mountains. Just walked across the road and boarded a train to Italy.

Real Maria was a feisty, hardheaded, strong-willed person who came to love Jesus and the Bible, got filled with the Spirit, spoke in tongues, and told everyone about all those experiences.

Did you ever feel that you don’t fit? What’s being spiritual look like to you? When many of us met Jesus, being spiritual was being a pastor or working in ministry full-time, or being a missionary.

I Corinthians 12:14-19 “For in fact the body is not one member but many. If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I am not of the body,” is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body just as He pleased. And if they were all one member, where would the body be?

Maria: “The two years were really necessary to get my twisted character and my overgrown self-will cut down to size.”

You belong! God has a specific plan for your life. Sometimes He has to shape you to get you where you really belong. Sometimes that’s painful. But He has a personal plan for everyone.

Jeremiah 29:11 “I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope.”

God isn’t making things hard for you–He just doesn’t want you to make your next step out of that particular door! Maria was supposed to go to the abbey. She thought it was to be a nun. But it was to get some rough edges worked out and to set her heart on finding and doing God’s will.

In the movie, Maria takes the kids for outings while their father was away, which she often did. He comes back and is angry that his children have been gallivanting about the countryside.

Has the Lord ever corrected you? Here correction is being brought by what would be considered a poor, lower-class religious “beginner” who should never speak to a Baron that way. Part of God’s correction of us involves humility. He will often send His word through people we’d rather not hear God’s word from.

At one point Maria acts out of fear, and looking to escape God’s call. Sometimes we will be challenged to make a change. It was God’s will that she face her fears. God knew how it was all going to work out.

She and the Captain get married. At this point in the film, the family realizes they can’t stay in Austria anymore. In the movie–right away. In real life, they had 11 years together first.

He is with us! His presence in our lives is the SINGLE BIGGEST FACTOR we have going for us! In this case, we remember what Jer. 29 says about giving us a future and a hope.

After the movie, the von Trapps’ made it to the states, toured, became citizens, and settled in Stowe, Vermont, where the family still runs a hotel and ski lodge.

The family’s story is amazing. They found their lives and identity in God’s word. They checked to see what the Scriptures said about every situation they faced.

“Doing God’s will became second nature in our whole family.” (i.e. – Maria marrying the Captain, the Captain allowing singing for others, etc.)

The film began as a Broadway musical six years before the movie. Some songs were dropped, but two were added, both completely at odds with the message of the rest of the film.

I Have Confidence

Proverbs 3:26 “For the Lord will be your confidence, and will keep your foot from being caught.”

Maria had her trust in the Lord, not in herself. Her trust was that if something was God’s will, everything would work out as it was supposed to.

The second song is even a bigger goof:

I Must Have Done Something Good Wrong!

Titus 3:5 “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit”

Ephesians 2:8-9 “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

His gifts, including salvation, are free and based on His love and mercy, seen most beautifully in the death of Jesus for our sins. Salvation is free to us!